


If at first you don’t succeed (your name isn’t Steve McGarrett)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coda, Episode: s02e05 Ma'ema'e (Clean), F/F, Fluff and Humor, M/M, danny and steve aren't married but they're still very married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 16:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “Are you asking me if our boss is single?”“Um,” Lori says, suddenly reconsidering if she shouldn’t have just gone to Danny. That would have been bound to end in disaster, too, but at least she could have avoided Kono’s sharp eyes.“Or are you asking if he’s gay?”





	If at first you don’t succeed (your name isn’t Steve McGarrett)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a follow-up to 2x05, Ma’ema’e, where Chin and Lori are stuck in a motel room waiting for a suspect. Lori admits that patience isn’t her strong suit and Chin says she’s a lot like Steve, which leads to Lori asking Chin what Steve’s deal is (because “he’s kind of hard to get a read on”, in her words, “except for the, you know, the daddy issues, those are- right out there, front and center”) and it’s GLORIOUSLY awkward and Chin’s face added five years to my life. He doesn’t really answer any of her fumbling questions and they agree to forget Lori ever said anything.
> 
> But if Chin was right, and Lori is anything at all like Steve, she obviously wouldn’t just let it go. So, this happened.

Lori didn’t have much success with Chin when she asked him what Steve’s deal was, so she moves on to Kono, the only other person on the team who she knows won’t start on a rant about Steve that could last their entire lunch hour. She goes about it tactically: she chooses a day where Steve and Danny leave HQ early to pick up Grace for her weekend with her father, and then waits until Chin has gone home to Malia, because she doesn’t need him there for this conversation a second time. The first was awkward enough.

Kono is still at the computer table. She’s leaning against it and looking bored as she goes over some paperwork on her tablet, so Lori doesn’t feel too bad about interrupting her. Kono looks up when she approaches. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Lori says. “Are you finished with your report?”

Kono wrinkles her nose. It’s unfair how she can make that look cute. “Just about. This is so not why I went into law enforcement.”

“Really? And here I was, thinking you had a passion for incident reports.”

Kono shakes her head and laughs. “Damn it, you’ve seen right through me.”

Lori can’t help but beam back at her, before she remembers her original goal in coming here. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, anything. What’s up?”

“So, I’m new here,” she starts, and then doesn’t really know where to go from there. Her explanation to Chin wasn’t exactly smooth and she should have given this some more thought in the interim.

Kono grins at her, which is not helpful if Lori wants to focus. “Don’t worry, everyone still thinks of me as the rookie. You’ve been saved by my inexperience.”

“You’re selling yourself short,” Lori says, and means it. She has worked with people twice Kono’s age with not even a tenth of her skill. “Besides, there are things you have more experience with than I do. Like this team.”

“You wanted to ask me about the team?”

“Well,” Lori hedges, “Steve. I just- What’s his deal?”

Kono doesn’t look surprised to learn the topic of their conversation, but she doesn’t make it easy for Lori either. She puts her tablet down on the edge of the computer table, giving Lori her full attention. It’s a force to be reckoned with. It’s a different reaction from the one her cousin had, at least. “His deal?” she asks. “What kind of deal?”

“Well, I mean, I know how he is on the job, obviously, because he’s calling us here at all hours of the day sometimes, but I was wondering- Outside of work-”

“Are you asking me if our boss is single?”

“Um,” Lori says, suddenly reconsidering if she shouldn’t have just gone to Danny. That would have been bound to end in disaster, too, but at least she could have avoided Kono’s sharp eyes.

“Or are you asking if he’s gay?”

Lori crosses her arms and then uncrosses them, because she is a _profiler_ , dammit, which means she should know better than to project such obvious signs of insecurity. “I never said that.”

“But you’re not denying it,” Kono says, gleeful in a way Lori thinks could be kind of dangerous. She has a hunch that Kono is far more like Steve than Lori herself is, no matter what Chin said. 

“I’m not,” she admits, which is as good as a confession.

“Hm,” Kono says, and Lori can feel her skin burn when Kono’s eyes scan her up and down. It’s not an altogether unpleasant heat, but it feels like an eternity until Kono continues. “I don’t think he is, though.”

“No?”

“You sound awfully surprised for someone whose job it is to read people.”

“It’s just-” She glances over her shoulder to make sure they’re still alone. They are, of course they are, but she takes a step closer to Kono and lowers her voice a bit anyway, just to be certain. “Danny and Steve?”

Kono is also leaning in. They’re standing really close now, for two people in a huge, empty room. “Oh, they’re just friends,” Kono says with a laugh.

“Just friends,” Lori repeats. She doesn’t even mean to, but her skepticism is layered on pretty thickly.

Kono’s nod is solemn, but there’s mischief in her eyes. She has very nice eyes. “Just friends,” she repeats, but this time she adds air quotes. 

“The kind that gets mistaken for married all the time,” Lori points out.

“Right,” Kono says. “And goes out of their mind with worry when the other is hurt.”

“And keeps insinuating themselves into each other’s lives in overly intimate ways.”

“And never stops bickering in a way that makes innocent bystanders wonder if they’re actually mad or just flirting really loudly.”

There is a definite pattern here. Lori adds a point she discovered only today that was part of the reason she had to keep asking about Steve. “The kind that picks up Danny’s daughter from school together because they spend the whole weekend at Steve’s anyway.”

“Yeah, when Steve isn’t renting a hotel room for Danny a day after they meet so Grace can swim with dolphins for a whole weekend.”

“Seriously?”

“It was a thing,” Kono assures her. “It was really sweet, but also completely ridiculous.”

Lori narrows her eyes at Kono. “You said you don’t think he’s gay.”

“That’s right. I don’t.”

“You never said anything about whether he could be bi.”

Kono’s grin, this time, takes over her face slowly. Her teeth are very white and there are tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “Hey, you know who else you should get to know better outside of work?” 

Lori has her suspicions, but she just smiles and asks, “Who?”

“Me.” Kono holds out her hand. Her grin is dizzying. “I’ll buy you a drink? If you’re lucky, you might even get to find out who else on the team is not entirely straight.”

Lori swallows a giggle at that, and it settles in her stomach, bright and bubbly and exhilarating. She slips her hand into Kono’s. “I do enjoy case studies.”

In the end, she is very, very glad she didn’t ask Danny.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Please let me know what you think, if you can. Comments are the best thing. <3
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com)!


End file.
